At 77, student is back at school and turning heads

At 77, student is back at school and turning heads

1of4Fashionable returning student, Claire Carlevaro, wearing a necklace made from milk cartons at USF after her class at the Fromm Institute on Wednesday, April 15, 2015.Photo: Amy Osborne, The Chronicle

2of4Fashionable returning student, Claire Carlevaro, wearing a black geometric bracelet made from a 3-D printer at USF after her class at the Fromm Institute on Wednesday, April 15, 2015.Photo: Amy Osborne, The Chronicle

4of4Fashionable returning student, Claire Carlevaro, wearing a necklace made from milk cartons and a bracelet made from a 3-D printer at USF after her class at the Fromm Institute on Wednesday, April 15, 2015.Photo: Amy Osborne, The Chronicle

Claire Carlevaro wore sweaters, pleated skirts and bobby socks when she was in college in the 1950s. It was a decade when conformity was expected. “You didn’t want to stick out,” she recalled.

Her second time around a college campus is a different story. Carlevaro, an energetic 77-year-old with a short spiky haircut, turns heads striding from class to class at the Fromm Institute, a special learning program for people over 50 at the University of San Francisco.

Her distinct fashion style was cultivated during the years she ran an art gallery in San Francisco. Carlevaro has become a walking billboard for artists whose work she admires.

On a sunny afternoon on campus, she wore an example of the statement jewelry she favors: A multistrand oversize white necklace made from a plastic milk carton. “I’m very interested in jewelry made from the salvaging of materials,” said Carlevaro, whose bracelet was made on a 3-D printer. She buys jewelry at craft shows and from Velvet da Vinci on Upper Polk and stores them on hooks occupying an entire wall in her Russian Hill apartment.

To assure her accessories dominate an ensemble, she favors simple solid color jackets with matching pants. This day she wore black with a white silk blouse. Her palette includes beige, navy and gray outfits from MIO on Fillmore. Her shoes are mainly comfortable flats enlivened by socks hand-painted by artists from Kati Koos on Sutter Street.

“The fashion lessons I have learned is to be myself and to celebrate things I care about, which is artist-made jewelry,” she said.